


Film Noir

by MayQueen517



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:47:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayQueen517/pseuds/MayQueen517
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hank has spent his life wanting to be normal. He wants to have the normal worries and the normal life. The problem is that Hank McCoy isn't normal. He never has been and he never will be. </p><p>It takes him, unfortunately, quite a long time to realize this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Film Noir

**Author's Note:**

> This is a strange, strange mix of something close to meta, character study, and actual fic of Hank McCoy from X-Men: First Class. I found myself really interested in how he goes from that version of Hank to the Beast that I grew up with from the 1990s cartoon show.
> 
> ...I don't think I quite managed it, but at the very least, I've written fic! (This is, incidentally, my very first fic in this fandom. Go gently on me!)
> 
> Title from the song of the same name by Gaslight Anthem.

Hank has spent his life wanting to be normal. He wants to have the normal worries and the normal life. The problem is that Hank McCoy isn't normal. He never has been and he never will be. 

It takes him, unfortunately, quite a long time to realize this.

He never cried about his feet. To be honest, he never even gave them too much thought until he realized that if genes were the key like everyone said, then he owed it to himself to make a copy of that key (He doesn't think about his mother's tears when she saw his feet. He doesn't think about any of it until he's looking at a syringe and wondering what will happen).

Hank McCoy has always been determined. He was determined to learn how to walk normally in shoes that were not specially made. He was determined to learn everything he could. And when he met Raven, he knew he would be just as determined to ensure they were normal for each other.

(Except that it turns out, she's learning new iterations of the word 'normal' and he's dealing with blue fur.)

Hank adapts. He takes his cues from Darwin, adapting to what is needed rather than what he wants. His feet are, admittedly, large and freakish. But they are useful in ways he never imagined (multitasking is much easier these days) and they aren't dangerous. Oh, they could be. "Anything can be dangerous," he tells Charles, "anything at all. It just has to be in dangerous hands."

He learns that the fur all over his body resists water. The droplets bead and roll away from the strands of his fur. He learns that if he doesn't brush himself at least twice a day then he gets painful knots (the first time Alex calls him an overgrown house cat Hank doesn't resist the animal urge to punch him. He does, however, resist the urge to continue punching him). Hank is learning more and more each and every day. 

Sorrow has a scent, Hank learns. It is sharp and pungent, as though something has burnt and lingered. It is the smell of burnt popcorn and something else that he can't place at that moment (but will later identify as scotch left out for days). Pervading the mansion, sorrow is everywhere. He doesn't go near Raven's room, but he can't escape it when Charles finds him. He doesn't say anything, but he tries to remind himself that Charles lost someone in all of this too.

Agility is a new skill-set he never thought he'd have to train at. He is fine with running and jumping and climbing; Charles thinks there should be more. Even from a wheelchair, he is at times stern and jocular. He goads Hank into flips and testing his own limits.

He learns new limits.

"It's like learning a whole new science," he says to Charles, still unused to speaking around fangs, "I can tell myself that it's just the same, but it's not. It's something different to be learned."

"I'm glad to see you're embracing this change, Hank. It really is extraordinary," Charles says as he lies a hand on Hank's arm like nothing has changed. The fur under Charles' hand is alive with receptors, reporting newer sensations to a newer brain.

Hank is never sure when he went from loathing his body to accepting it. He thinks that it was somewhere around meeting Charles and listening to Erik discuss the ways of acceptance and how mutants shouldn't hide. He thinks that maybe it was the first time he found a wad of blue hair in the shower drain and resigned himself to having to find a new way to bathe. 

(He tries, once more, to correct his condition. He tries for what he looked like before meeting Raven. Instead, his body changes again. It is less feline this time; more canine - maybe even lupine - and he makes a vow to not try it again.)

He sees Raven - not Mystique, never Mystique - a handful of times after Cuba. She is secure in her body, more than ever before; it surprises him to know that he's just as secure in his own. Normal is as normal does. Normality is to be fought for, he has always thought. It turns out that you make your own fate and normality and for the moment, Hank McCoy is fine with that.


End file.
